2005 Annual Report - Parents Television Council

THE YEAR IN REVIEW
The PTC entered into its 10th anniversary
year making headlines coast-to-coast in
newspapers and on news programs, demanding
that consumers be able to have real choice in
the cable programming they purchase. Within
days of launching the Cable Choice initiative
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Sen. Ted Stevens
(R- Alas.), and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Ohio) each
pledged their support to the cause.
The PTC was responsible
for bringing the concept
of à la carte cable, or
Cable Choice, into the
public consciousness and
throughout the year beat the
drum of Cable Choice at
every opportunity. The
result? In December the
Senate Commerce Committee
held an Open Forum
on Decency in the Media at which the FCC
Chairman endorsed this very concept!
The final two weeks of 2005 featured the
cable industry scrambling to come up with
compromises as they realized their days of
extorting the American consumer by forcing
them to pay for offensive
programming they don’t want
were coming to an end.
The PTC hammered home
the need for Cable Choice with
its study MTV Smut Peddlers,
which documented the raw
sewage being targeted directly
at the youngest and most
impressionable members of
the family on the MTV cable
network, and with another
study on MTV which showed
the network failed to use
content descriptors to warn of
the highly offensive content on
the MTV reality show Real World 16: Austin.
The call for Cable Choice was made with
every PTC Take Action initiative targeting
advertisers of the most foul, violent and obscene
Children watching
MTV are viewing an
average of
9 sexual scenes
per hour with
approximately
18 sexual depictions
and 17 instances
of sexual dialogue
or innuendo.
2005 PTC STUDY:
MTV SMUT PEDDLERS
programming on television. By year’s end
newspaper editorials all around the country
were endorsing the Cable Choice initiative.
“Imagine being able to select and pay for
only the cable channels you want, like
choosing dishes in a buffet line... We think
Americans would welcome the flexibility
and choice, and perhaps lower bills, that
could come with à la carte pricing.”
~ December 15, 2005
Denver Post
The PTC continued to
keep the spotlight on the
issue of indecency in
2005. The cover story of
the March 28 issue of Time
magazine carried the
headline: “Has TV Gone
Too Far?” The Time article
provided high-profile
visibility to the PTC and its efforts to fight for
families’ rights to decent programming and
contained the following quote: “Almost singlehandedly,
the PTC has become a national
clearing house for, and arbiter of, decency.”
In 2005 the PTC was mentioned, on
average, 133 times every
month in the press. PTC
spokespeople were called on
more than 400 times to offer
expert advice about relevant
issues. That exposure –
“earned media” – multiplies
the reach of donor dollars
exponentially. It is, in effect,
tens of millions of dollars of
free publicity for our work.
The PTC’s efforts to hold
advertisers accountable for
their support of raunchy programming
reaped impressive
results. The PTC primarily
focused its efforts on two FX shows in 2005,
Nip/Tuck and The Shield. By year’s end 88
companies decided the content on these shows
did not meet their corporate standards.
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GRASSROOTS CHAPTERS: 34
MEMBERSHIP: MORE THAN ONE MILLION
ANNUAL BUDGET: $4 MILLION